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MEMORIAL SERVICES. 



TRIBUTE TO THE 




—HELD IN— 



St. PHILLIP'S A. M. E. CHURCH, 

SAVANNAH, GEORGIA. 

MARCH IStH, 18»4,. 



SPEECHES BY 

Son. H. M. Tu-rner, LL.I)., 
HoTt. J. J£. Sirmns, 

(Resolutions, ^^c. 



■^'♦«»> 



SAVANNAH : 

D. G. Patton, Printer 
1874. 



PREPACfi. 



The death of Mr. Sumner having cast such a gloom over the 
colored citizens of Savannah, they resolved to meet in one of the 
largest edifices in the city for the purpose of commingling their 
grief and sorrow with each other. 

A notice appeared in the paper for a meeting of the citizens 
to take preliminary steps to consummate the same. The Lyceum 
Hall was crowded as per notice, and to facilitate the measure, a 
committee of ten of the leading citizens were appointed to fix the 
time and make all necessary arrangements ; the committee con- 
sisted of JH Deveaux, chairman; AverySmith, Rev. U L Hous- 
ton, Eev. H L Simpson, L B loomer, H M Turner, Capt. R D 
Goodman, William Pollard, J M Simms, K. S. Thomas, Capt. 
John Gardner, H L Giles. 

Having discharged the duties assigned, the services took place 
at St. Philip's Church, (Dr. Turner's,) at three o'clock, P. 
M., on the 18th inst. The house was beautifully draped in 
mourning; consisting of flags, mottoes, Mr. Sumner's photo- 
graph, wreaths, arches, &c., all in full emblems of mourning. 

The number of persons present, including those who could not 
get into the house, has been variously estimated at from 4,000 to 
5,000, among whom were several white persons. The occasion 
was the most imposing, as well as the most magnificent of any 
which the colored people ever conducted in this city. All the 
colored churches are draped in mourning, and the houses of the 
colored people are almost without exception, craped either on 
the out or inside. 

AVERY SMITH, Secretary. 



THE ORDER OF EXERCISES WAS AS FOLLOW* : 

1st. Introductory remarks by the Chairman, J. H. Deveaux. 

2d. Funeral Dirge chanted by the choir, which consisted of the best singers se- 
lected from the various choirs of the city, under the management of Prof. 
James Porter, 

3d. Prayer by Rev. H. L. Simpson, Pastor of the Second Baptist Church. 

4th. Solo,— «'I knov7 that my Redeemer Liveth, " by Miss Elizabeth Greenfield, 
(celebrated "Black Swan.") 

5th. Reading of the Holy Scriptures, by Rev. U. L. Houston, Pastor of First 
Bryan Baptist Church. 

6th. Solo and Quartette, by Miss Spencer and the choir, " Jesus, Saviour of my 
Soul." 

7th. Address by Hon. H. M. Turner, LL.D. 

8th. Solo—" Flee as a Bird to the Mountain," by Mrs. R. H. Bourke. 

9th. Address by Hon. J. M. Simms. 

loth. Adoption of the resolutions. 

Ilth. Doxology by the Choir. 

I2th. Benediction by Rev. J. S. Atwell, Pastor of St. Stephen's Episcopal Church. 



PREAMBLE AND RESOLUTIONS. 



Chas. Sumner is dead. What a terrible blow to them to whose 
welfare he devoted a brilliant and useful life. A great expounder 
of the constitution, he became indeed the champion of our race. 
In his death the United States Senate has lost its brightest 
gem, Massachussetts a noble and honorable son, and the country 
its greatest statesman. Let the people mourn — for their loss is 
great. 

Mr. Sumner may well be considered as having reached the apex 
of American statesmanship), and will be deservedly enshrined in 
the true American heart for his honesty and purity of character; 
his wisdom and sense of justice, his love of truth and virtue, 
the sublimity of his eloquence and the greatness of his knowl- 
edge. His name will always be proudly remembered and cher- 
ished in the palaces of the wealthy, and the homes of the poor 
and the lowly. Yet there are some who will not praise him now, 
but their children's children will be taught to emulate the 
knowledge and principles of the American statesman whose de- 
mise we now so sadly mouru. 

Charles Sumner devoted his life — one that was full of hope 
and brightness in the future, to the purification of the government 
of his country. From the commencement of his public career, 
the noble determination to make the declaration of independence 
a living fact instead of a brazen mockery, has occupied his 
closest attention and called forth his most powerful efforts ; how 
he succeeded cannot be better illustrated than in our action 
to-day. Standing in the senate of the United States, he was a 
terror to evil doers and to tyrants, who faltered and cowered 
before his withering denunciations of the crime of slavery, and 
his vivid picture of universal freedom, pictured with all the earn- 
estness and eloquence of which he was master. And this, too, 
at a time when it was dangerous even for a congressman of the 
United States to express his honest convictions based upon the 
first principles of the government, that all men were created 
equal and endowed by their Creator, with certain inalienable 



rights, among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happi- 
ness, as we have seen in the brutal and terrible assault committed 
upon Mr. Sumner by the South Carolina representatives in 185G, 
within the sacred walls of the senate for exercising the dearest 
rights of citizenship — the rights of freedom of speech. From the 
walls of the senate, bleeding and unconscious, the victim of the 
fanatical party was born to linger for months, suffering from the 
eifects of the blows received in the cause of freedom ; but his 
blood and sufferings served only to enrich the soil of liberty, and 
to cause the plant of freedom to grow stronger and stronger until 
seven years later, after many bitter strifes in the forum and leg- 
it^ lative halls,and upon the battle fields,it culminated in emancipa- 
tion — the shackles fell from the limbs of the slave and in the rich 
panoply of freedom, the former bondman proudly stood. 

xlfter the emancipation proclamation issued by our martyred 
President, Mr. Lincoln, Mr. Sumner having witnessed the first 
g/eat aim of his life in the extinction of slavery, turned his 
mighty intellect to the bestowal of the full rights of citizenship, 
a:idthe recognition of the equality of all men before the law, with 
the fullest guarantee of civil and political rights upon the emanci- 
pated colored men of the country. In this he was compelled 
to meet and combat all the powerful influences brought about 
by Andrew Johnson's treachery 1o principle. But with "Wilson 
in the senate, Thaddeus Stevens and others in the house, and 
General Grant at the head of the army, Mr. Sumner's cause 
succeeded. Throughout this struggle Mr. Sumner displayed 
a statesmanship seldom equalled, and never excelled. In his 
demands for justice and equal rights for all he displayed the 
persistency of the immortal Wilberforce, the dogmatism of the 
famous Calhoun, the eloquence of Clay and 

" Brougham's scathing power, with Canning's grace combined." 

With such a powerful champion declaiming in our favor, one 
by one the iron barriers of prejudice were overcome and equali- 
ty before the law, and full political rights were made secure for 
all citizens, for all time to come. Mr. Sumner now gave the 
largest portion of his time to the enactment of a law to protect 
all citizens in their civil rights, and for that purpose prepared 
the celebrated Civil Eights Bill now pending before the Senate 
of the United States, and which is now occupying a great share 
of the country's attention. It is at this time, while hard at 
work in the noble cause, bending his mighty energies to its en- 
actment into a law of the land, his spirit yielded to the fell des- 



troyer death, and took its flight to Him who gave it. 

" Such are the pictures, which the thought of thee, 

O friend, awakeneth — charming the keen pain 
Of thy departure, and our sense of loss 
Requiting with the fulness of thy gain." 
The above being in substance our thoughts on this sad occa- 
Bion, we do resolve : 

1. That, while we bow with reverence and submission to the 
mandates of our all- wise and Heavenly Euler, we can but feel 
and be deeply sensible of the great loss the country has sustained 
in the death of its great statesman, Charles Sumner. 

2. That the best years of his life, distinguished alike for wis- 
dom and patriotism, were devoted to the cause of freedom and 
the amelioration of our people, and that we are deeply sadden- 
ed at the loss of so great and dear a friend, whose place it will 
be hard to fill, but his name shall live forever and remain sanc- 
tified upon our memories. 

3. That we offer our sincere condolence to the sister and rel- 
atives of the deceased, and to the citizens'of Massachussets in 
their bereavement in the death of their illustrious son. 

J. H. DEVEAUX, ) 

L. B. TOOMER, V Committee on Resolutions. 

K. S. THOMAS, j 



ADDRESS OF DR. TURNER. 



Mj friends, we meet to-day to commemorate and mourn 
the loss of one of the greatest Americans ever born and nur- 
tured upon our world-famed soil, our grief at the loss of Hon. 
Charles Sumner finds no expression in words, no relief in tears, 
and no comfort in the sighs of millions. 

A statesman who stood head andslioulders above any of his 
day and generation. A scholar who had no superior in legal lore 
or moral ethics. A philanthropist whose capacious affections and 
great heart encircled the children of every race, clime, and na- 
tionality. A citizen whose character was untarnished, a reform- 
er who stood as a watch tower in the van- guard of a revolution- 
ary host. A gentleman whose culture, refinement and urbanity 
blended with an aristocratic demeanor, singularly constituting 
him a model among equals. An orator whose chaste diction and 
flowery eloquence will be the emmulation of coming generations. 
A hero whose war weapons were bloodless missiles, but ter- 
ribly invincible, and fearfully destructive on the field of com- 
bat. 

A philosopher whose analytical acumen comprehended eve- 
ry phase of human character, and sifted the deeds of kingdoms. 
A beacon whose flambeau lit up the path of progress and civ- 
ilization. 

A cosmopolitan who had no bounds to his generosity, and 
would have rather been the benefactor of a hottentot than the 
companion of a prince — but to be short, one of the noblest speci- 
mens of humanity of any age, in the historj^ of the world, fell in 
death from the apex of glorj when all that was mortal of Chas. 
Sumner died. 

About twenty-three years ago, a tall, spare looking man, 
crowned with a majestic brow, and presenting the aspects of 
great natural ability and the highest acquirable attainments, 
walked into the senate of the United States, possibly to the con- 
stei'nation of many, and after taking the oath of office, sat down 
in the midst of those he was destined to eclipse both in gloiy 
and renown in a few years. In close proximity sat Samuel P. 
Chase and John P. Hale. This trio then constituted the only free 



soil exponents in the Senate. They were the nucleotic forces of 
of those fearful issues which were in a short time to change the 
land-marks of our country,and baptise the nation with freedom. 
Up to this time the right of petition was partially denied if it in- 
volved the subject of human rights, and those in the Senate who 
dared to present them were classed among fanatics, agitators, 
and the most inimical foes the country had. 

But for one to so far forget his calling as to attack the wrongs 
of slavery, was to make himself such an unnatural piece of hy- 
brid monstrosity ,that no vocabulary could furnish a name with 
which to entitle him. 

The reputation of Mr. Sumnei, though small at that time, had 
nevertheless, acquired sufficient celebrity to indicate his future 
course in the Senate ; therefore, to thwart any mischievous de- 
signs on his part to the special institution whose advocates 
were always exceedingly sensitive, the pro-slavery senators re- 
sorted to every conceivable parliamentary strategy to prevent 
him getting the floor ; but in due time he obtained it, and from 
the day he delivered his maiden speech to the day of his death 
he was the grand master of the Senate Chamber. 

In a conversation with Chief-Justice Chase in Washington 
city in 1869, he told me when only three of them were in the 
Senate (meaning three Abolitionists) they were pointed out and 
looked at as wild beasts in a cage, but, said he, "Sumner kept 
them all busy." 

For three quarters of a century the Congress of the United 
States had never had a fearless champion of liberty. True there 
had been men there who had assumed timid positions favoring 
free speech, colonization, &c., but there had never been a man 
there who took bold grounds in favor of a free country. 

Mr Sumner came on the stage of political action, just as Web- 
ster, Clay, and Calhoun were passing off. I think he came in the 
same day Mr. Clay went out. never to return. This was a trio 
of great men who had long been the bulwarks of what was fast 
becoming an obsolescent era in the history of our country. For 
over a quarter of a century their expositons of the Constitution 
of the United State'^', ranked equal to a decision from the su- 
preme court of the nation. But the Missouri compromise, admis- 
sion of Texas, and the Wilmot proviso, blended with the doe- 
trine of squatter-sovereigi ty, which were to grow out of the 
Kansas-Nebraska struggle, was destined, under an over-ruling 
Providence, to embolden the advocates of liberty, and usher ip 



10 

a brighter dispensation, and thus the cause of liberty re- 
quired a Sumuer— a man like Bonaparte with iron nerves, 
and a will as defiant as the Word of God — a man whose 
erudition none could gainsay, but whose gigantic intel- 
lect towered above them all. God always raises up great 
heroes when there is great work to be done, for duty and 
responsibility must correspond. One of the best evi- 
dences of human affairs remaining in statue quo, at least 
for a time, is to see little men ooming to the surface. 
Gad never places third rate officers to man his vessels 
when a fearful gale and angry billows are just ahead. 

When Mr Sumner was called from the ranks of the 
private citizen to the Senate without having to serve 
an apprenticeship in the lower house of Congress, or in 
the executive chair of his State, any one familiar M-ith 
the history of nations and kingdoms might have known 
it was portentous of a gathering storm. 

True, the friends of liberty had able representatives in 
the persons of Mr. Hale and the late Chief Justice of 
the United States, but they lacked the dash, the vim, 
the snap, the dare, the popular defiance, and sledge ham- 
mer and battle axe ability, and power, commensurate to 
the emergency of the times, though great men as they 
undoubtedly were. But in Mr. Sumner all these characteris- 
tics and qualities happily blended, and made him the 
match of all the learned sophists, of all the time serving 
political weati:er-cocks, of all the blatten mouth brag- 
garts and bombastic blusterers, of all the wiry tongue 
rhetoricians and pseudo-logicians, that this or any other 
country could produce, of all the fabricated fiction, or 
labyrinthine mazes with which the sharpers of tyranny 
could festoon their theories. Too noble to do wrong, 
too great to be mean, too wise to make a blunder, too hig-h to 
coiitenance a low act, too solid to be a trickster too pure to he 
a politican, too just to be partial, too brave to cower before men 
or devils, too spotless to be slandered in the most calumnious age 
the world ever witnessed, armed with the helmet of right, and 
panoplied with a code of principles, as irreversil)le as the flowing 
current of the Mississippi river,he stood out as grand and as ma- 
jestic before the world as thundering Sinai did, wlipu the shud- 
dering hosts of israel trembled at its base. A vital amaze- 
ment, an intellectual human prodigy, a creature with super- 
human traits, such was Sumner, the man of des- 



11 

tiny, molded out of the matrix of heaven by the com- 
mand of God, to front the reformatory measures bornedin 
the middle of the nineteenth century, and well did he do 
the work assigned. What staggered Hale and disheart- 
ened Chase, only fired the soul of the gi'eat Sumner. 

The Southern statesmen for years had swayed a seep" 
tre of political power over this country, till in many re- 
spects they regarded themselves as lords of the manor, but 
in Mr. Sumner they had an antagonist they were unabla 
to cope with in learning or baffle in argument. But South 
Carolina the pestiferous State of my nativity, was so bent 
upon silencing his otherwise impregnable batteries, that 
she resorted to the bludgeon in the hands of Preston S. 
Brooks. The sequence was, that in May, 1856, Mr Sum- 
ner was knocked down in the Senate Chamber, drenched 
in his own blood, and the skull that enclosed the finest 
brain in the world was fractured for life, but this was only 
the harbinger of greater results. While Mr. Sumner was 
for a short time silent from the brutal efi'ects of a coward- 
ly assault upon his person, the silence was counter-bal- 
lanced by the thunders of a hundred volcanoes, which spit 
forth angry fire, smoke, and seething lava in terrible ebu- 
litions to the consternation of every like ruflian, for the 
whole North was mad, and even the South was mantled in 
shame and had to censure her own hero. 

But the blood of the saints are said to be the seed of the 
Church, and so it was in this case, the blood of Mr. Sum- 
ner proved to be the seed of liberty, for although he so far 
recovered as to bo able to resume his seat in that body, 
when he returned, he went with a feeble constitution, but 
a stronger will and a greater soul, wliere both he and the 
blood he shed so profusely, plead the cause of the oppress- 
ed. From that time till the overthrow of slavery, Mr. 
Sumner spoke to man but his blood spoke to God, Mr. 
Sumner cried to earth but his blood cried to Heaven, Mr. 
Sumner plead in the Senate but his blood plead in the skies. 

Mr. Sumner with his solid reason and thrilling eloquence 
touched the hearts of millions, but his blood touched the 
heart of God, Mr. Sumner marshalled the armies of the na- 
tion against the institution of slavery, but his blood mar- 
shalled the armies of heaven. 



1^ 

The trio of so-called fanatics above referred to, Sumner, 
Chase and Hale, could not have made the impression in 
years with the most learned and elaborate arguments that 
was made in a day after Sumner fell by the fatal-aimed 
blow of a ruffian, and wallowed in his own blood. 

Mr. Sumner was no politician, he was every whit a 
statesman; like Webster, he was an orator, but unlike Web- 
ster he was inflexible ; like Everit he was a philosopher, 
learned and sagacious; but unlike Everit, he was an impar- 
tial philanthropist, with a heart as wide as immensity. 
Like Clay, he knew what would serve the people as a 
temporary panacea, but unlike Clay he made no compro- 
mises. Like Calhoun he ransacked the dusty records of 
ages to glean the assembled wisdom of the world ; but 
unlike Calhoun, he used his knowledge to help the poor, 
needy, and oppressed, and not to perpetuate a vicious aris- 
tocracy at the expense of others of the same blood, and 
none the better by race. Like Bacon, he reasoned on tran- 
scendental theorieSjto aid the cause of justice and refute the 
wild heresies of his day ; but unlike Bacon, he carried a 
spotless record to the tomb. Like Fox, he was censured 
for his course by the same power that gave him elevation ; 
but unlike Fox, Massachussetts bowed at his feet and beg- 
ged pardon. 

He was too great to be a politician, for he had no policy, 
he was as far above political wire-pulling and intrigue, as 
the heavens are above the earth. And yet he was the 
master politician of the age,becausehis policy was even han- 
ded right. Yes, square right between man and man, found- 
ed on the golden rule which was manufactured in heaven, 
" Do unto to others, as ye would them do to you." 

Nor would I have you to understand Mr. Sumner to be 
some later day, spawn or plastic fungus, who like a mush- 
room, sprang up, and under the afflatus of a constituency, 
adopted a popular course merely for the sake of office ; to 
the contrary, I have the most masterly argument ever 
deUvered in this country; made by him long before he ever 
thought of the Senate, which he made in favor of mixed 
schools. It was really he who opened the schools of 
Massachussetts to the indiscriminate use of the colored, 
and broke down the walls of distinction. At that time, 



13 

too, lie was in tlie flush vigor of a young man, and no posi- 
tion assumed could have been more odious and unprospective 
Thus showing, beyond doubt,that he never did cater to pub- 
lic sentiment, if that sentiment was vitiated and contrary 
to the rule of right. 

And while he was a friend of all men, a world-wide 
beuef actor, a cosmopolitan in the fullest sense of the term, 
with inclinations and predilections as impartial as the 
sun-beams, which fall indiscriminately upon all races and 
climes. He would, nevertheless, seem to be the special 
friend of the colored race ; yet, he was no more our friend 
than he would have been o^ the Jew, the Irishman, the 
German, the Italian, or the Frenchman, had they been in 
our condition. Jesus said when he was on earth, "I came 
not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." And 
again he said, the whole need not a physician but they 
that are sick. Mr. Sumner did not teel that white men 
nee led his help like the poor negio whose mouths were 
locked and whose hands were tied, yet, his great abilities 
were not by any means restricted to our race, for when the 
nation stood in need of one to champion her cause, meas- 
ure arms with the diplomats of the world, and vindicate 
her honor with foreign powers, to whom did she look but 
to Carles Sumner ? the man who could read and translate 
the languages of all the civilized nations on the globe, the 
man w^ho understood all the treaties, all the international 
laws and the man above all others in America,who was re- 
spected by the great men of every civilized nation in the 
world. 

The truth is, Mr. Sumner hated slavery, because he 
thought it was wrong per se, and subversive of the end, for 
which his country had been released from British tyranny 
White slavery or black slavery were equally obnoxious to 
him, and on the other hand he believed as both revelation 
and reason teaches, that the negro was the image of God 
set in ebony, and in a fair race would win distinction as 
well as other people. He did not believe in crippling a man 
and condemning him for being lame, therefore he said give 
the negro fair play and then if he fails condemn him, but 
not hamstring you and then ridicule your inactivity. 

Such is an epitome of the creed of that great statesman, 
however, as he saw the colored race the most needy, he 



14 

4 

gave us the most assistance, for tie was in deed and in 

truth OUE HERO — OUR CHAMPION. 

And while we can name a host of true friends— friends 
who have been tried and found steadfast and immovable, 
none more so than his colleague for many years, Vice- 
President Wilson, I do not know of any who could meas- 
ure arms with Mr. Sumner. He began at home in 
Massachussetts, and although he found no actual slaves 
there when he mounted the arena of manhood ; he found 
the cold hand of discrimination, and fought till he had 
driven it out. 

When he went to Washington he found it the abode of 
slaves and the den of oppression ; he mustered the armies 
of Jehovah and flayed the monster, for like Herecules he 
held the poison-fanged viper by the neck till the horrid 
reptile twitched in death. 

He fired the hearts of the North on the one side, and 
of the South on the other, and opened a chasm which could 
never close till the negro passed through it on his way 
to Canaan. He,in conjunction with Thadeus Stevens, Hor- 
ace Greely and others, held the rod over the great Lincoln, 
and whipped him step by step and from corner to corner 
during the late bloody war, till he issued his world-renown 
ed reclamation of emancipation. 

At the end of the war he with Chief Justice Chase and 
Thadeus Stevens at his side, led the crusade against the 
admission of the South to representation, till the negro 
had his oath in the court house, and was clothed with the 
ballot. These being obtained, he turned his attention to 
the district of Columbia, and crushed out all distinctions 
between races and colors so completely that any one vis- 
iting the national capitol to-day, would be astonished to 
learn that such a hydra-headed monster ever stalked at 
large in that beautiful city. 

When President Johnson sent General Grant, who was 
no statesman or politician at the time, through the South 
on a tour of inspection, and he (General Grant) returned 
and reported things all quiet and peaceable between the 
whites and blacks, it was Mr. Sumner who rose up in the 
Senate and told the country that the report was white- 
washed, and so counterbalanced or counteracted the eflects 
of the report as to turn the tide of popular sentiment in 
tavor of those who stood in need of the protection of the 



15 

general Government. But on no subject did Mr. Sumner 
display the majesty of a statesman, and dwell in such con- 
vmcing power as he did on giving the negro the ballot. 
Here he showed the resources of his exhaustless intellect 
as no other statesman hving did or could. He challenged 
the world — he met our foes from every clime and of every 
dialect, he rebutted their objections by quotations from 
the reformers of all nations, he made the moralists, the 
poets, the theologians, the jurists, the scientialists, 
and the axiomatics of every age and chme contribute 
to this object. He could spare blood to wash the Senate of 
the United States, and brain-force to deluge the world with 
ideas. True, he never led a partv, but he led the nation — 
he was gTeater than a party, besides he lived too far in ad- 
vance of his contemporaries to lead a party, however noble 
its aims and commendable its cause ; but hke a pilot Ijoat 
he found the chunnel for the ship of State, and dragged her 
after him with a slow but a sure glide. 

Mr. Sumner had no persoual relations he could not sever 
when thej- stood in the way of duty, for he would tight his 
persoual fiiends as hard when he thoiight them wrong 
as he would his bitterest foes. Nor did he couch before 
either power or popularity, he cared no more for a Presi- 
dent than for a peasant, if he thought them wTong, duty first 
and fiiendship second was his motto. He pinched Presi- 
dent Johnson so during his treacherous administration that 
on one occasion the President got tight, and named him 
personally in a drunken carousal from the steps of the 
White House. He even fi-ightened President Grant so 
about San Domingo that he has been afi'aid to mention the 
name since. 

Mr. Sumner was not only a man of the finest theories, 
but he gave practicalization to all his professions. He pro- 
fe!-sed to be a humanitarian, and he earned it out to the very 
letter. While he lived in the most superb splendor, in a 
mansion in which there was nothing wanting in the range of 
human conception, yet that mansion was as free to the black- 
est negro as to an English lord. 

While his high pohsh and great refinement made him an 
aristocrat in the eyes of the masses, yet he felt as much gra- 
tification in taking a black man by the arm and perambulat- 
ing the streets, as he would to be in the train of royal pomp. 
A few yeaisago, wh-n on a visit to Washington with Mr. 



16 

Simms, from whom you will liear in a few moments, we 
had an occasion to visit one of the public buildings in com- 
pany with Mr. Sumner ; and to my astonishment the greatest 
statesman the siin ever shone upon, walked up between us 
and locked our arms, and proceeded through the streets 
and buildings as imconcernedly as if had been in company 
with his senatorial coUegiies ; he thought no more of asking 
a black man to dine at his table, than he did of the whitest 
man on earth. 

Mr. Sumner did not live for himself either, he lived to ])e 
a blessing to the poor and needy. The Ltst time I sav/ his 
majestic brow and stately person was last spring in Wash- 
ington, at which time I called upon him to pay my respects 
as I usually did ; our converstilion soon turned upon the 
fight, he waged against the President. I told him, that I 
like thousands of other colored men in the country ; lovetl 
him, but could not endorse his rabid fight on the Presid-vab, 
though I did not doubt, but the President had faults. "Vv ell, 
he said, "that was natural ; but if my attack upon the 
President does no other good, it will drive him to stand by 
the colored people more firmly, to prove that my predictions 
were false. But said Le, a great many of his 
pap-fed supporters think they have killed me oli', but I am 
perfectly willing to go down, if the colored people can go 
up, for I am only living for them now; and I can onl3diope 
to see the labors of my life crowned with the passage of 
the civil rights' bill, then and not till then, can I feel tliat 
the cause for which so much blood have been shed is c jui- 
plete." (Great applause.) 

How Christ-hke these words, how full of righteousness 
Mr. Sumner felt years ago, that he was to be one of the 
chief instruments in tlie hands of God, of crowning this na- 
tion with the chadem of justice. In a conversation between 
him and myself and several others, who called upon hini in 
1803, he remarked, "that my blood kindled this fire, (mean- 
ing the war,) and when it needed recruiting, John Brown 
gave his to rekindle it, and it will be utterly impossible now 
to extinguish it with compromises." A great many norih- 
ern papers at that time was advocating the policy of ofter- 
ing some overtures to the South, and ending further de- 
struction of life on the battle field. But the last humani- 
tarian act, for which the distinguished Senator labored with 
such indefatigable devotion, as to merit the praise, tlie love 



17 

the honor and admiration of our race forever, was in 
trying to secure the passage of the Civil Eights' Bill, and 
thus abohsh all distinctions between races, colors and na- 
tionalities, as well as to give to his country what few, if 
any, upon the face of the globe can claim, a code of cos- 
mopolitan laws. In this the great senator rises to a grandeur 
that will enshrine his name in the affections of men of every 
clime. Generations now sleeping in the womb of the future, 
will come forth with richer words and swifter pens to fringe 
his name with glittering gems. 

AMien the kings and queens of earth shall be forgotten 
or remembered in contempt, and the heroes of the battle 
field shall no longer be admired, the name of Sumner 
shall still glow upon the pages of history; and the poet- 
muse shall weave it into song, while the reformers of all 
nations will quote his remarks as the preachers of the 
gospel quote from the sacred scriptures. The only shadow 
that fell over the dying couch of Mr. Sumner, was the 
black prejudiced, which had stayed the passage of that 
bill; for tliis he had labored for years and waited with pa- 
tience. I have no doubt but his bludgeon-fractured head 
and worn-out frame would have died a year sooner, had 
that bill been passed.. It made the soul liugei" in the body 
and loth to quit its hold. He would rise up from a bed 
of prostration and crawl to the Senate Chamber, to watch 
his Civil Rights' Bill. The desire of seeing that bill become 
a law was a greater stimulant to his shattered constitution 
than all the medical excitives known to pharmacology, 
for he was the unquestionable father of civil rights ; it 
was never thought of till he raised the question. He had 
even then to educate both colors to its importance and 
worth. Many colored people at first thought such a meas- 
ure premature and useless, and, I am sorry to say, I was 
one. 

For I never could understand the necessity and indis- 
pensability of such a measure being enacted, till I read it 
in Mr. Sumner's speeches. In this God made him the 
school-master of the nation. Thus he comprehended the 
wants of the negro better than thousands of them did for 
themselves, and the wants of the country better than any 
statesman, living or dead, nor did this knowledge or desire 
desert him even in his dying hour ; the aim of his life be- 
came the charm of his death. There stood George T. 
Downing, the President of our Civil Eights Associations 



18 

for the United States, a man, too, of culture, taste and 
ability, in the name of his race, to minister to the physical 
wants of our departing hero. Mr. Sumner looked through 
Mr. Downing as an astronomer does his telescope, and 
saw behind him five millions of his race suffering under 
the effects of civil proscription; and the hero of civil 
rights then cast his dying eyes to Mr. Hoar and said, ''Do 
NOT LET THE CIVIL RIGHTS BILL FAIL." Again his life sinks 
down beneath the turbid waters of death, and all seems 
still and quiet, for his pulse has refused to beat ; but once 
more he surges to the top, and whispers from the very 
jaws of death, " Do not foeget the bill." And again he 
sinks, to rise no more forever. 

And thus ends the career of the greatest statesman living 
or dead; dead did I say? O heavens can it be, Charles 
Sumner dead? — how cold that word, — is the great Sumner 
gone?— shall we see his majestic form no more? — is his 
voice hushed forever ? — have we lost our best friend, (God 
excepted?) — who can fill his place ? — shall we ever see it 
filled? — no, no, no, for the world can only produce one 
Charles Sumner in a dispensation, never, never will we look 
upon his like again. O God, but for thee, I should de- 
spair to-day and say let me go too, [sensation and w^eep- 
iug, Mr Simm's leaves the stand to weep.] But I trust 
his mantle will fall on some of his compeers, and that 
another shall lead the measures he inaugurated to a full 
and complete consummation. Congress can only honor 
him by the passage of his bill, any memmorial services in 
Congress that does not involve the passage of his civil 
rights bill, will be a farce, a fizzle and a dishonor of the 
featured name of Charles Sumner. 

-> [Among the great men of the world, we reckon the names 
oifr Cip/ero, C<«sar, Socrates, Charlemagne, Cromwell, 
Hamden, Tell, Bonaparte, Burke, Pitt, Fox, Washington, 
Tit^Jjs^nJljyrttiQnverture, Webster, Brougham, and a host of 
Qtljj^i'>«ttitM$jn^ja, reformers, poets, philosophers, scientists, 
int^]liliOj{s.4?i4fr benefactors. But high above them all we 
may h<iuy;,tiw name of Hon. Charles Sumner, whose spot- 
li,'^'s lif*', wljose iiidusti'ious record, whose great abilities, 
\yhQSft,;tj'iujii^pli4n^rp^^'(^er,,and wdiose heaven-born princi- 
pal^ i^ilj. Anjj^lj^ ;i;:^(^-jjtt^|i .^^^ijen the lightening holds the pen 
and tJil8^?m'0infe^a',Y|%n8.,).)j;]L"!olls. the scroll of immensity. 
ip^rgw^lijio^jl^l^ipFo,-— ifcewell to thy noble heart, — 
i^mmlli^mk^mnmZ) (ite^P^i^P^^ cheering.) 



ADDRESS OF MR. SIMMS. 



Mr. Chairman and Fellow-Citizens : — The Hon. Charles 
Sumner, Senator in the United States Congress, from the 
State of Massachusetts, is dead, was the saddening news 
borne on the lightning wings of the telegi'aph to the 
world, one week since ; that he departed this life at thir- 
teen minutes past three o'clock p. m. Wednesday, the 11th 
inst. Sirs, he is not dead , our friend, Sumner, sleepeth ; 
he but taketh his rest — the rest that his great heart and 
noble spirit so much needed. '' I am so tired,'' I am so 
tired ; I want quiet," we are told he said ; a short time 
after, he was seized with a paroxysm — a struggle with the 
last enemy ; the last struggle with nature ensued, and 
Charles Sumner slept, we humbly trust, a blessed sleep, 
from which none ever wakes to weep. Thank God, there 
is a rest for His people ! Then let our friend rest ; it was 
not often that his soul hath known repose. Let him rest ; 
they rest but seldom, whose successes challenge foes. He 
was weary and worn with watching, and this vigilant, . 
weary watchman has found quiet rest. 

We may hang upon his last hours and his last words, 
for those of a faithful friend, stay with us, are precious, and 
we treasure them. His last words in this life were char- 
acteristic of this great statesman, and peculiar. They 
seem to intimate that his great work of life was not quite 
finished. " Take care of the civil rights bill ; do not let it 
fail." Here was a great thought for the nation, and the 
negro, whose champion he gloried in being. " Tell Em- 
erson I love and revere him ; " Heavenly passion in the 
breast — love and reverence — the brightest of the train, and 
strengtheners all the rest. Then, to a visiting friend, he 
said, "sit down". Ah! friends, fellow-citizens, here was 
piety, friendship, sympathy, politeness, love, reverence 



20 

and true manhood, all struggling for the prominence, in 
the last earthly operations of this giant mind, " That 
has gone from this strange world of ours ; no more to 
gather its thorns with its flowers." Oh, how good he was ! 
Oh, how great he is ! 

" In Christ may he rest from sorrow and sin ; 
Happy where earths conflicts enter not in." 

But I need not extol him here to-day. My eulogy will 
be too poor, I think, compared with what all the world 
has said, is saying, and will repeat, of Charles Sumner, 
through all lime, and my eloquent friend and colleague, 
Mr. Turner, who has just preceeded me, has said enough 
for the memorial occasion. But allow me to give you a 
synopsis of his Times* history, which truly says 
Charles Sumner was early educated in the most ad- 
advanced ideas of the thinkers of the old Whig party, who 
were opposed to slavery in every form, from a deep con- 
viction of its repugnance to Christianity and humanity. 
In this school of thought Charles Sumner was educated, 
and when the war with Mexico threatened, and it was pro- 
posed to annex Texas as a slave State, he made his entry 
into political life with a splendid oration, at Boston, on 
" The True Grandeur of Nations," in which he declared 
war and slavery to be remnants of a barbarous age, and un- 
worthy of Christian nations. The oration attracted uni- 
versal attention, and provoked endless controversy. It 
was pronounced by Richard Cobden 'the most noble con- 
tribution made by any modern writer to the cause of 
peace." This was a brilliant opening for a comparatively 
young lawyer, not hitherto known outside his own State ; 
but when we turn back and see the years of severe prepar- 
tion which had preceded it, we find that it was not the 
effort of sudden inspiration, but one of the matured results 
of a life spent in the highest cultivation of great intel- 
lectual gifts. 

Charles Sumner liad attained his thirty-fourth year when he deliver- 
ed this oration. He was born in Boston on the 6th of February, 
1811. He had the great advantage, often too iittle aj^preciated, of 
being born to a comfortable fortune, his father, Charles Pinckney 
Sumner, being a lawyer in good circumstances, and a man of hi|?h lit- 
erary taste and eminent probity. Charles was thus enabled to pursue 
his early studies at leisure under the best auspices. At the Boston 

*Nezv York Times. 



21 

Latin School, wliere he prepared for college, he displaye 1 great 
fondness for the classics and the study of history, and the close of 
the course saw him the winner of the highest prizes for English 
composition and Latin poetry, as well as the Franklin Medal. From 
the Boston School he went to Harvard College, and graduated in 
1830. For a year after he pursued his private studies, and he en- 
tered the Law School at Cambridge, where he enjoyed the friend- 
ship of the eminent jurist Judge Story, who had the highest opinion 
of the ability and energy of his young student friend: In pursuing 
his law studies, Charles never, we are told, relied on texl-books, but 
sought original sources, read all references, and made himself fa- 
miliar with the whole range of common law literature. At this time 
he was a contributor to the "American Jurist," a quarterly law 
journal of wide circulation, of which he afterward became the 
editor. In 1^33 he edited Dunlap's Tkeatise on the Peactice of 

THE COUKTS of ADMIRALTY IN CiVIL CaSES OF MaEINB JuEISDICTION, 

and displayed such a scope of legal learning in the work as surprised 
even the highest authorities in the profession. The year after he 
was admitted to the Bar, and commenced a practice, which soon grew 
to be a large one, in his native city. For three successive Wiuters 
after his admission to the Bar he lectured to the law students of the 
Cambridge school, and in the absence of Profs. Greenleaf and Story 
had sole control of it. While reporter for the United States Circuit 
Court at this time, he issued the three volumes known as Sumner's 
Reports, containing decisions of Judge Story. It was in 1836 that 
he was offered a professorship in the law school and also in the 
college, but the young lawyer declined both. His aim was to com- 
plete his education in the highest sense, and, with his view, in the 
following year he sailed for Europe, bearing with him valuable let- 
ters of introduction from some of our best lawyers to their friends 
of the English Bar. His reception in England was of the most flat- 
tering character. His stay there was prolonged nearly a year, and 
in that time he became acquainted with some of the most eminent 
men of the day. It is safe to say that to-day there are no American 
statesmen better known or more highly esteemed in England than 
Charles Sumner and Charles Francis Adams. Mr Sumner was a 
close attendant at the debates in Parliament, and in the courts at 
Westminister, where he was frequently invited by the Judges to sit- 
by their side at the trials. Perhaps the best evidence of the degree 



22 

of estimation in whicli he was held is furnished in an extract from the 
Quarterly Review, which, alluding to his visit some two years 
after, said : 

" He presents, in his own person, a decisive proof that an Ameri- 
can gentleman, without any official rank of widespread reputation, 
by mere dint of courtesy, candor, an appreciating spirit, and a cul- 
tivated mind, may be received on a perfect footing of equality in the 
bestcircles— social, political, and intellectual; which, he it observed, 
are hopelessly inaccessible to the itinerant note taker, who never 
gets beyond the outskirts of the show-house." 

From England, Mr. Sumner went to Paris, where a like cordial 
and distinguished reception awaited him. During his stay there he 
made himself familiar with the practice of the French law courts, 
attended the law schools, and the lectures of all the eminent profes- 
sors in the different departments at the Sorbonne and the College of 
France, and closely followed the debates in the Chamber of Depu- 
ties, thus storing his mind with a range of parliamentary law and 
practice as wide and varied as his acquirements in purely legal 
learning. Gen. Cass was American Minister at the French Court 
while Mr. Sumner was in Paris, and it was at his request that the 
latter wrote his masterly defence of the American claim to the 
North-eastern boundary, which was widely copied at the time of its 
publicatioti . From France to Italy, and from Italy to Germany, 
Mr. Sumner continued his travels, stopping long enough in both 
countries to study all that was best in literature, in art, and in pub- 
lic life, which they could furnish, and everywhere he was received 
with the same distinguished consideration. On an appreciative 
and cultured mind, such as Mr. Sumner's, three such years of travel 
and study spent in the society of men eminent in all departments 
of intellectual, social, and public life, aud amid the historic associa- 
tions of the Old World, had the most happy effect. He returned 
to his native city in 1840, with much added to that perfect educa- 
tion which it seemed his steadfast aim to attain. He resumed the 
practice of his profession, but scarcely seems to have given it his 
principle attention, preferring rather the leisurely study of the sci- 
ence aud literature of the law. In IGiS he again resumed bis posi- 
tion of lectarer at the Cambridge Law School, and the following two 
years issued his edition of VasEY's eepokts, in twenty volumes, a 
great work, conceived and executed in the happiest spirit. We now 



23 

arrive at that period in Mr. Sumner's life when he was to become 
known through all the United States as the advocate of human free- 
dom, Vi^hen Judge Story died in 1845, hoping that the young stu- 
dent he had trained up would succeed him in the professorship of 
the law schooJ. Charles Sumner had just chosen another path in life. 
He delivered his oration before the Boston municipal authorities, 
and the author of the Tetje Grandeuk or Nations therein unfold- 
ed the banner under which he was to enter political life. It was 
delivered on the Fourth of Julv, 1845, and from that day dates Mr. 
Sumner's career as one of the leading figures in the history of the 
anti-slavery struggle. 

The struggle for the annexation of Texas, and the consequent ex- 
tension of the slave power, was at its height at this time. The Whig 
Party opposed it bitterly, but it was evident that the Democracy 
would carry their i3oint. Mr. Sumner raised his voice in indignant 
protest against what he knew to be almost inevitable, but against 
a wrong which was not the less a wrong because it had the weight 
of numbers in its favor. At a public meeting in old Faneuil Hall, 
he pronounced an elequent and thrilling oration, denouncing such 
an extension of the slave power as was proposed; and again in the 
year after, in the same place, addressed the Whig State Convention 
on the "Anti-slavery Duties of the Whig Party." Not long after 
he published a letter of rebuke to Hon. Robert C. Winthrop for his 
vote in favor of the war with Mexico. On the 17th of February, 1847, 
he delivered before the Boston Mercantile Library Association a 
brilliant lecture on "White Slavery in the Barbary States," which 
he subsequently expended and published in book form. At Spring, 
field, in September of the same year, he made a speech before the 
Massacijusetts State Convention on "Political Action Against the 
Slave Power and the Extension of Slavery," and in June, 1848, 
another, "For Union Among Men of All Parties Against the Slave 
Power and the Extension of Slavery," in which he forcibly charac- 
terized the movement of the day as a "revolution destined to end 
only with the overthrow of the tyranny of the slave power of the 
United States." These able productions, so masterly, forcible, and 
direct, the earnest speakings of an advanced thinker and a man of 
profound convictions, gave Mr. Sumner a wide celebrity; but they 
had alarmed the Whig Party, of which he was a member, by their 
uncompromising autagonipm to slavery. The Pro-slavery Democ- 
racy was all-powerful; the Whigs were, in mass, timid of going to 
^n extreme length in opposition to it, and Mr, Sumner withdrew 



24 

himself from the party and joined the "Free-soldiers," or the ad- 
vanced spirits who favored the election of Mr, Van Buren to the 
Presidency in 1848. Gen Taylor, however, v/as elected, died, and 
was succeeded by Vice President Fillmore. The Fugitive Slave 
"Bill was passed, was signed by the President, and the wh )le North 
was thrown in a paroxysm of fury. One of the best speeches, 
severe, jus*, and terrible in its depth of indignation, made against 
this measure, was Mr. Sumner's oration bttore the Free-soil State 
Convention at Boston, in October, 1850. li produced the deepest 
impression on those who heard it, and tended to keep a'ive the 
strong resentment with which the Northern people always regarded 
the odious statute. On the 24th of April, 1851, Daniel Webster 
having vacated his seat in the Senate by a condition of Free-soldiers 
and Democrats, after a contest of extreme severity, and which was 
anxiously watched all over the country. The event was ev.M-ywhere 
celebrated by the Free-soldiers as a victory for their cause, Mr. 
Bum ner took his seat in the national councils firmly pledged " to 
oppose all SECTIONALISM, whether it appeared in unconstitutional 
efforts by the North to carry so great a boom as freedom into the 
slave States, or in unconstitutional efforts by the South to ea:ry the 
SECTioNAii evil of slavery into the free States, or in whatsoever efforts 
it may make to extend the sectional domination of slavery over 
the national Government." His first grand effort in the Senate was 
made on the 26th of August, 1852 — the celebrated speech entitled 
"Freedom National, Slavery Sectional." Such was the jesdousy and 
power of the Pro-slavery Party at this period that debate on the 
slave question was scarcely permitted by its advocates in the Senate, 
and Mr, Sumner had for a long time been deprived of an opportunity 
to speak. But he gained it at last, and made terrible use of it, de- 
nouncing first the attempt to muzzle debate, and then the Fugitive 
Slave bill, in the most scathing and severe tei-ms. Two years after, 
in February, 1854, he made another great speech against the Kan- 
sas-Nebraska bill. It was in this speech he denounced the bill as at 
once the best and the wokst measure which Congress had ever 
acted on; the worst in the fact that it was the triumph of slavery 
over every constitutional and human right; the best, in that it threw 
away the scabbard in the flight, made compromise impossible, and 
proclaimed universally that from that moment the battle between 
slavery and freedom must be fought till one or the other fell never 



25 

to rise. On the 26th and 28th of June, of the same year, Mr. Sum- 
ner, on the Boston memorial for the repeal of the Fugitive S'ave 
law, replied with severity and eloquence to Messrs. Jones of Tennes- 
see, Butler of South Carolina, and Mason of Virginia, displaying in 
the most commanding way his power as a debator. Mi*. Sumner 
never relaxed his exertions in the cause of his choice a moment. 
In Congress or out of it, in debates on the floor of the Senate or in 
addresses, he continued to denounce the evil of slavery, the tyranny 
of its advocates, and to urge on the free people of the North the 
duty of its suppression. He became the recognized leader of the 
Anti-slavery Party in the Senate, and Massachusetts had reason to be 
proud of her talented and gifted son, whose name was in every one's 
month. In May, 1856, occurred the great debate on the admission 
of Kansas as a state. In the coarse of his speech on this question^ 
which has been esteemed one of his best oratorical efforts, Mr. Sum- 
nerdenounced the crime of slavery with such unsparing severity* 
and exposed its manifold evils and degrading influence with so keen 
sa arcasm, that the Southern members in Congress became furiously 
incensed. The speech has a sad celebrity from what followed it. 
Two days after its delivery, while Mr, Sumner was seated in his chair 
in the Senate, after adjournment, busy writing, he was suddenly at- 
tacked by Preston S. Brooks, a member of the House from South 
Carolina, and a nephew of Senator Butler, to whom Mr. Sumner bad 
replied. Armed with a heavy caue. Brooks struck his unconscious 
victim a powerful blow on the head, fel'iug him unconscious to the 
floor, and then continued his blows, while Mr. Kfitt, another South 
Carolina Congressman stood ready, pistol in hand, to prevent inter- 
ference. Messrs, Morgan and Murray, of New York, and Mr. Chit* 
tendon, who were in the Chamber, recovering from their sudden 
horror, rushed forward and dragged off the would be assassins before 
they h td completed their work. The efiect of this occurrence on the 
country was startling. From east to west one universal cry of indig 
nation arose, and the attack probably did more dumage to the 
Democratic Party than even the Fugitive Slave bill. It gave a degree 
of concentration and intensity to the antipathy of the Northern peo- 
ple to slavery and its advocates which it had never before known. 
The Democracy rallied somewhat to the defense of their men, but 
not all the power of hot party spirit could so overcome the common 
feelings of humanity, as to make them regarded with anything else 
than universal repugnance. Both Preston Brooks and Keitt died 
miserable and dishonored deaths. 



26 

Tbf injuriFS of Mr. Sumner were of tlia most dangerous cbaracter 
and r. su ted in a long-continued disability. He sought quiet and 
repose in another visit to Europe, whtro at Paris he was under medi- 
treatment by Dr. Biown-Seqnaru, unler whose care he was 
finally restored to health; but it was evident his nervous system had 
received af-hock from wliiehit never wholly recovered. Mr. Sumner 
had been in 1857 almost unanimously re-elected to the Senate by the 
Massachusetts Legislature, and on bis return from Paris he resumed 
his seat and delivered his well-known oration on " The Barbarism of 
Slavery, a complement to the one for which he had been assaulted, 
and not in any degree milder or aiore conciliatory, as his Southern 
hearers discovered. In the Presidential canvass which rtsultcd in 
the election of Abraham Lincoln, Mr. Sumner took an active part j 
and in the debates in the Senate which finally led to that last attempt 
of the Soutli to perpetuate the system which their great opponent 
had spent his life in destroying, Mr. Sumner stood up as the uncoaj=. 
promising enemy of compromise « r conces^sion iu any shape or form. 
He saw that the last grand act in the drama was approaching, and he 
was not the man to shrink from the Fcene which all saw mutt o low. 

The long contest in which Mr. Sumner had borne the brunt of 
the fight, ended with the firing on Fort Sumter. The final decision 
was to be given not in tha halls of legislation, but through "blood 
and iron" on the field of battle. Other men now took up the strife, 
and the military commander now occujjied that place in the iJublic 
eye which before had been filled by the leJslator and the orator. 
All eyes were diiected and all the enogits of the nation were con- 
centrated on its armies, until it became apparent that the Soutlurn 
power was falling. The war was not end^d, but its close was near 
at hand, and the statesman of the North began the consideration of 
a reconstruction po'icy. In what manner .should the conquered 
States be readmitted to the Union ? What was their footing under 
the Constitution ? This was a problem of which ti;e soUit on was 
sought in a thout-and different ways. Mr.»Sumner appears lo have 
watched every plan introduced in Congress for the restor tion of 
the conquered States with jealous interest. Early in the war he had 
advocated the unconditional emancipation of tlie slaves a.s the spee- 
diest and most effectual means to end it, and when that emancipa- 
tion was tfftcted, he stood prepared to oppose any and everything 
which might seem, however remotely, to raiatate against the per- 



27 

feet freedom and t quality of the colored race under the law. In 
1865, when the question of admitting Representatives from the 
t^tate of Louisiana, in which a Government had been formed by Un~ 
ionists uuder Federal protection, a joiat resolution of the Senate Ju- 
diciary Committee recognising this State Government wis presented 
Mr. iSumuer offered a substitute favoring an early establishment of 
a republican government by act of Congress, based on the pr inci- 
ples of the Declaration of Independence, and the equality of all ci- 
tizens before the law. la tbe final resolution of his substitute the 
military forms of Goverument which had been established over the 
Southern States were condemned as contrary to constitutional prin- 
ciples. Mr. Sumuer'.s principle was that by investing the negroes 
in the conquered States with all the rights that the white citizens 
enjoyed, national authority would be placed upon a more secure 
foundation than by any other method. All his public utterances on 
the policy of reconsiruction were mainly founded on this idea. He 
further advanced the theory that no amendment to the Constitu- 
tion was necessary to guarantee equality before the law to the col- 
ored race, because that instrument provided for " a republic m form 
of government " in each State, and as long as any State refused im- 
partial sufferage it did not possess a republican government. This 
view, however, was generally looked upon as untenable. After the 
amendment to the Constitution abolishing slavery had been ratified 
by twenty-seven States, Congress was called to take action on the 
"Equality bill." On the 20th of December Mr. Sumner made 
a strong speech, urging the passage of the bill as necessary to that 
protection of the freedom which the National Government was 
ptedged to afford. The bill was passed. In the following session 
President Johnson stnt to Congress (Dec. 18, 1866,) his message on 
the progress of reconstruction in the South, giving a very rose- col- 
ored view of affairs there. Mr. Sumner made a sharp attack on tha 
message, stigmatizing it as similar to the " whitewashing message" 
of President Pierce on the affairs of Kansas. Senator Doolittle de- 
fended the President, and thenceforward the rupture between Con- 
gress and President Johnson b?gan, which ended in his impeach- 
ment. In May of the next year, Mr. Tbaddeus Stevens' reconstruc- 
tion measures were the leadinp; questions in the Lower House. They 
encountered violent opposition from the proposed disfranchisement 
of the greater part of those who had been conspiciously active in 



28 

the rebellion. The resolutions, after slight amendments by the Se- 
nate, were passed in June, and were strongly advocated by Mr. 
Sumner. Every measure of reconstruction brought before Congress 
which offered guarantees of protection and equal rights to the ne- 
gro, up to the introduction of the "Military Government bill" 
fcuud a warm friend in Mr. Sumner. This bill dividing the Southern 
States into military districts, to be under the command of a General 
and military force to maintain peace and order until a stable Govern- 
ment could be formed, and met with an energetic foe in President 
Johnson. It was passed by both Houses Feb. 20, 1867, Mr. Sumner 
being a leading advocate in the Senate and Mr. Stevens in the 
House. It was vetoed by President Johnson March 2, 1867, and 
was passed over the veto by both Houses with a gain of ten votes 
in the Senate and three in the House. The supplementary bill to 
the original, which passed both Houses, was also vetoei March 23, 
1867, by the President, and was promptly passed over the veto 
in the Senate and House. The war between Congress ard Presi- 
dent Johnson, who had been so bent on forcing upon it his own 
policy of reconstrufltion, that of recognizing the rebellious States 
as being still sovereign States, became a bitter one. Mr. Sumner 
gave expression to his sentiments concerning the President's con- 
duct on many occasions, and finally Mr. Johnsor, after his fa- 
mous tour around the country, was impeached. At the great im- 
peachment trial Mr. Sumner submitted an order that the question 
be put, as proposed by the presiding officer of the Senate, and 
each Senator sh<ill rise in his place, and answer guilty or not guilty. 
It was unanimously agreed to, Mr. Sumner had voted • 'guilty" on 
nearly all the articles of impeachment, and on the question of a vote 
for adjourment of the court without day he voted in the affirmative. 
Since the close of the famous trial Mr. Sumner has made only one 
great speech, though no one has paid closer or more conscientious 
attention to his legislative duties than he. 

Apart from his efi"orts in Congress in behalf of the colored race 
Mr. Sumner distinguished himself by two important speeches as 
Chairman of the Committee on Foreign relations. The first of these 
he delivered in 1863, on the Trent affair, maintaining that the seiz- 
ure of the JSoutherL Commissioners was indefensible on any ground 
of any international law, and that the logical conclusion of such an 
act would be to arm all the nations of the world against each othe' 



29 

so long as they had a ship on the seas. The second speech was 
made in 1867, in executive session of the Senate, the seal of secrecy 
being removed by unanimous vote, on the Alabama claims. This 
oration was rather an indictment of the English Governmeat, and a 
passionate denunciation of its bad faith and covert hostility to the 
North, than the logical setting forth of the claims which the United 
States cou;d put before a board of arbitration. Mr. Sumner's views 
of "consequential damages" were not urged before the Geneva B jard 
the award adjudged against the English Government was based on 
the actual and positive damage done by the Southern privateers. 

Mr. Sumner's private life was eminently upright and pure. In 
manner and deportment Mr. Sumner had the stamp of a refined and 
high-toned gentleman. His figure was commanding ; his carriage 
bespoke an intrepid spirit ; his voice in debate was deep, yet me- 
lodious, and he stood among the chosen of the land, a man form- 
ed for leadership, esteemed and respected even by those who feared 
him most. 

And this is the man God gave us!- -the most abjectly op- 
pressed people the world ever knew— as our champion, the 
champion of our rights among the law-making powers of 
the land. Pure in his Saxon blood, purer in his principles, 
a gentleman and a scholar, disinterested in his politics, of 
spotless virtue, loved, respected and honored by the good 
and great of Europe as well as America, associated 
with the brightest, holiest spirits and the largest souls in- 
habiting this planet ; yet he labored with untiring vig- 
ilance and zeal for the most down-trodden, oppressed, 
brother man of his country, never ceasing from the peace- 
ful strife, save when physically wounded for a little while, 
but ever watching, ever working ; he only ceased when his 
noble, generous, loving heart stopped its functions of life 
— worn out in the negroes' cause. 

Oh, Massachusetts ! Mother of American liberty ! a 
brilliant light you have given to illuminate this world of 
sin and vice ; a. true friend of humanity ; nobly hast thou 
repaid us for tbe blood of Chrispus Attucks, that baptised 
thy bosom in 1770, by the noble deeds of chaste Charles 
Sumner, whom we have lost. 

In this impressive memorial hour, whilst reviewing his 



30 

heroic acts, may we vow fidelity to the principles he so 
long and faithfully maintained, and pro^e to the world 
that he hath not lived in vain. And as he says "quiet," 
who knows better than all else besides, we need it. For 
about twenty-nine years, in this country, there has been a 
constant strife and turmoil over the wrongs of the negro. 
The words "tired" and "quiet," seem suggestive, if not 
mandatory, to this nation, and to us, the negro race, who 
■vrere his constant care. He seems to say the world has 
been disturbed sufficiently for this time ; quiet will bring 
us calm, deliberate reflection ; in it we may educate and 
contemplate those peaceful, powerful we&])ons, argument, 
logic, and truth, by which he has achieve 1 such glorious 
victories for us. That God has greatly endowed us with 
them ourselves, he has observed in his intercourse and 
friendship with our Douglass, Garnet, Largston, Downing, 
Wormley, Philis Wheatley, Francis E. W. Harper, Payne, 
Gaines,Turner, and last, perhaps greatest, Elliott,with many 
others we could name. He seems to say, boo, that he will 
rest quietly in the bosom of free Massachusetts soil, at 
lovely Mount Auburn cemetery ; we, in the bosom and 
brains of living, progressive America, until the time when 
the schools, colleges and seminaries shall send us forth 
to illustrate the wisdom of universal liberty and equality. 
Defend her institutions and our rights, for truly Mr. 
Sumner's examples and ways of living were like God's — 
pleasantness and peace. Other noble spirits led us in 
war ; we had gallant Shaw, Higinson, Bu-^Jer, and others, 
brave and generous ; but our Sumner, by -precept and ex- 
ample, was eminently a prince of peace ; for, though ruth- 
lessly stricken down by the hand of a foe, when in after 
days he spoke, it was of the barbarism of slavery, the sys- 
tem under which the man was bred, but nothing against 
the man. Personally, he spoke to me on several occasions 
uncompromisingly against the dreadfuJ system, but always 
kindly toward the Southern people who pracfced it. 

But he has gone hence ; he rests where they bore his 
stately remains yesterday, Mount Auburn, the place of 
sepulchre in the old Bay State — his native State — of 
which he said to me: "Naturally she produces for com- 
merce only granite and ice ; yet, by energy and industry, 
is made to bloom as bright as Eden." Often may we 
make pilgrimages, I trust, to the golden spot where he 



31 

lies entombed, hanceforth to become the negro's Mecca. 
Oft may it be -beder.-ed and jewelled with the tears of vir- 
tuous young men ;;nd maidens of our race, who go to pay 
their grateful homage to God, at the tomb of him whose 
sincere friendship, : potless life and incessant labors, was 
largely instrumeiial in lifting them up to the proper stand- 
ard of liberty, equality and happiness. 

Soon may some cf us be called to meet his spirit before 
Clod, but my faith v,-hispers that our sons and daughters, 
in future times, v/alking through the city of Bostou,~w}iere 
Charles Sumner was born, admiring her grandeur as shown 
in her thrift and wealth; their appreciative sense view 
glorious old Buiiiicr Hill, in the distance ; find pleasure in 
rambling over her broad commons ; delight to rest and 
read while in the shades of her extensive public library, vet 
turn from them all, at eve, to wind their way through old 
Cambridge, paying due regard to old Harvard, his hon- 
ored alma mater ; then find sweet, loving, peaceful enjoy- 
ment sitting or standing around the tomb, contemplatir-g 
with full hearts and vivid memories, the greatest states- 
man of Americ; . the greatest human friend of the negro, 
Hon. Charles Sumnier. 




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